


Baozi

by Steelneko



Category: Mulan - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:millenniumrex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-16
Updated: 2008-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-10 14:50:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steelneko/pseuds/Steelneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulan has two buns in the oven, but only one of them is edible. Fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baozi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [milleniumrex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/milleniumrex/gifts).



> Baozi are Chinese steamed buns with many different kinds of fillings. They're usually really good, but I can't vouch for what this particular combination would taste like. Thank you to Antumbral for beta reading this for me!

For someone who could swordfight, scale walls, tactically out-maneuver an invading general and his army - twice, no less - Fa Mulan was really not great at cooking. And, Shang had decided, things had started getting more ... interesting ever since she had discovered she was pregnant with their first child. That's when the strange cravings had started.

Shang watched as she worked hard at a mound of dough in the kitchen of their home. A pile of ingredients rested on the table next to her. Shang tried and failed to piece together what the end result of the many things she had assembled was supposed to be.

"Mulan?" he finally asked. "What are you making?"

She looked thoughtfully at her ingredients. "Steamed pork buns," she said. "I'd really like to have some of those. Except I also have a craving for some sweet bean paste too, so I might mix some of that in with the pork."

Shang's stomach balked at the idea of mixing hot meat with sweet deserts in the same food. She and the child might enjoy the strange taste, but he was pretty sure it would only end in tears and indigestion for him.

"Are you sure about that combination?" he asked.

"Not really," she said. "But I figure everything's worth trying once." She looked up at him. "Since you're here, want to help me? I'm nearly ready to start steaming these."

He didn't have anything else to do at the moment and he'd be able to smell them well enough from anywhere in the house as soon as they started cooking. He approached the table. "What would you like me to do?"

She raised her hands from kneading the dough to point at the pile of ingredients. "I've already finished preparing the beans. Would you chop up the pork for me?"

Shang grabbed a knife and started cutting the cooked pork into small bits.

Mulan let out a sigh of contentment. "This reminds me of being back with my family. My grandmother makes these buns all the time, and I used to help her out when I was little and trying to learn how to cook. Hers always looked great." She looked down at her dough and the bowl of bean paste next to it. "I'm not so sure mine'll turn out as good."

Shang finished chopping up the first bit of pork and moved on to the second one. "You're pretty close to your family," he remarked.

Mulan split the dough into small sections and started shaping them into balls. "Yeah," she said. "I love them a lot. My parents weren't able to have any other children, so I guess they spoiled me a little. I've always tried to do my best to make them happy and bring my family honor, even though sometimes I fail horribly at it."

She flattened the balls into discs. Mulan picked one up lightly, and pushed down the center so that it made a curved shape. Scooping up some of the bean paste, she put it in the center of the circle, and layered some of the pork Shang had been chopping on top of it. Using her free hand, she started folding the edges up to make a dome over the filling.

"What about you?" she asked. "I know about your father, but I've never heard you talk about your family."

Shang finished chopping the rest of the second piece of pork and started following Mulan's actions to make his own buns. "There's not much to say. My mother died shortly after I was born, so I never knew her. My father was a soldier through and through, so he spent most of his life in service to the Emperor and raised me to follow in his footsteps. He never remarried, so I have no brothers or sisters. That's all there is to it."

Mulan paused in her cooking work to look at him. "Weren't you ever lonely?"

"Maybe sometimes," he said. "But I knew how important my father's duty was to him." Still, there were some times when he had wished that his father had been closer to home, and not off in the far reaches of the empire dealing with threats to China.

"Hmm." Mulan finished closing up the pastry and started on a second one. They finished making the rest of the buns and placed them next to the kitchen fire to let them rise a bit.

She leaned on Shang's arm as he looked at their work. The buns looked a little lumpy and misshapen, but they seemed close enough to how he remembered them.

"I want to be there for our kid," Mulan said quietly. She looked up at him. "Even if there are invading armies and rebellious princesses and annoying dragons and other troubles that need us to deal with them, I still want to be there as a good parents."

"Me too," said Shang. He moved his arm to wrap it around her shoulders. Mulan copied him to wrap her own arm around his shoulders. "You're the only family I have," he said. "I want to make sure that you're protected. Both of you."

Mulan smiled. "Good, because I'd rather not hunt you down in some far off battlefield with a kid in tow. And I would, you know."

"I know," he said. "And I get the feeling your grandmother would too."

Mulan laughed at that.

They placed the finished buns in a steamer to simmer over the fire. Soon, the smell of cooked buns filled the kitchen. Mulan pulled the buns out of the steamer one by one and brought them over to a plate. She put the plate of buns on the dining table in front of them. "Care to try one?"

Shang gingerly picked up one of the hot pork and sweet bean buns from the plate with his chopsticks. The bun looked overcooked and brown in some places and it smelled funny. He bit back his doubts about the mixture and took a bite of it.

To his surprise, he found it actually tasted pretty good.

He finished up the bun and set his chopsticks down. "That was ... rather tasty," he admitted.

Mulan smiled and grabbed one of her own to eat. "So, should I add them to the menu when Yao and the guys visit us next week?"

"Why don't we just keep these between the two of us for now?" Shang said quickly.

Mulan leaned in closer. "You mean the three of us."

He closed the distance between them to give her a quick kiss. Her breath smelled a bit like fried pork and sweet beans. "Later, we'll think about the three of us. For now, I'm happy with just us two."

Even if that meant more strange combination dishes for him to deal with.  



End file.
